NASA has shared images showing what it describes as a “double crater” left on the Moon’s surface by a rocket of unknown origin.
In a statement shared last week, the agency noted that astronomers first spotted a “rocket body” in late 2021 that was set for a lunar collision. That collision has been determined to have occurred in March, with the aforementioned double crater later being captured by way of NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, which is operated by the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
“Surprisingly the crater is actually two craters, an eastern crater…superimposed on a western crater,” NASA said last Friday.
Bill Gray, an astronomer, is credited with first noticing the then-still-moving bit of so-called “space junk.” Gray first speculated the rocket in question was part of a SpaceX Falcon 9, though he later said the identification was incorrect, despite “pretty good circumstantial evidence” at the time.
Gray, who’s also behind Project Pluto, later spoke with the Verge about how an email from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory ultimately inspired him to take a fresh look at the situation. The proverbial finger has since been pointed at a Chinese mission launched in 2014, although a spokesperson for the country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded earlier this year by claiming the “upper stage” of the rocket used in that mission had “burnt up completely.”
Moon matters of all kinds have received much attention in recent days. Tuesday, for example, NASA’s CAPSTONE mission—aimed at further studying the Moon via a new path of orbit—was successfully launched aboard Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket in New Zealand.
